Sugar Mill /  by Dave Hileman

We went to a near by park that had ruins of an old sugar mill. The park had more than we expected to see with water views and lots of cool scenery. A second stop at Washington Oaks State Park was a bit disappointing - not with the place but much of the park was either not open or under maintenance. So no reflecting ponds, sad. Then we drove on to St. Augustine. The old fort was great. We had not been there in a long time, so another NP we did not plan on visiting this trip but we were able to enjoy. Photos will be on Monday. Excellent talk by a NP Volunteer about some Plains Indians that were prisoners here from 1845 to 1848. Mostly positive story out of tragic circumstances.

One of the few flowers still blooming or just blooming at Washington Oaks.

Surfside Shakes, Flagler Beach, Florida /  by Dave Hileman

by Cadillac Moose, PhD, RA

The Surf Side Shakes shop opened in 2020 but has recently changed ice cream vendors. As you know I am focused on quality, quantity and quaffness so I prefer shops that make their own ice cream. This is an exception cause it is LEOPOLD’S from Savannah. One of my absolute favorite ice creams. Oh, wait, I need to be more professional if the GBBS so going to call.

This ice cream had a “clean flavor” with no disgusting aromas or colors, not too much air in the mix and an excellent tongue complexity. You may have noticed I minored in ice cream at MBOCCCA.

The shop was cute, but no indoor seating is a deduction, cost was on the high side but good selection and nice manager, who of course, came out specifically to wait on me. Four flavors were enjoyed but the best was the Peppermint cause that is one of my favorites.

I will award the shop 3.5 antlers.

The manager heard an almost famous Moose/ food critic / Ice Cream specialist, and possible judge on the Great British Baking Show was here - so she came to wait on me personally.

Flagler Beach /  by Dave Hileman

We are at Gamble-Rogers State Recreation Area on the Atlantic Coast. Lovely park, beautiful beach and the town of Flagler Beach is both charming and nearlly recovered from the two hurricanes of 2022. We are in site 33 on the beach side with power and water. Well kept like most every state park we have camped at in Florida. Some trails and nice area on the Intracoastal waterway as well.

Old “Big Boy” sign in front of a burger place. Used to be the place to go when I was in HS. Or at least that is what I think I remember.

Brice at Made in Florida - his store and second job. Nice Guy.

Coach’s Corner, Savannah, Georgia /  by Dave Hileman

by Cadillac Moose, PhD, FA,

I knew this was going to be a great place as soon as I walked in the door. The delightful aromas? The eclectic menu? No, Televisions! Dozens of TV’s maybe hundreds. TV’s behind the bar, hanging from the ceiling, AT EVERY BOOTH! This is exactly the kind of detail Paul Hollywood would miss. How he keeps his job?

Plus the barkeep had a great, bushy beard and all the waitstaff loved me. But you also want to know about the food. It was abundant and the meals were excellent with the exception of the french fires, they were not crispy, they were a crunchy mess. C. Moose does not sugar coat the truth. However the homemade potato salad made up for what I am sure was a minor blip on the restaurant’s effort. The atmosphere was like a dark forest, which I love. They sold stuff to drink I am not allowed to have because of my parole, I mean my financial situation. The burgers were available on a variety of bread, which is a big plus but they did not offer ice cream or swamp lilies, so slight deduction for that mistake.

Overall, Four Antlers (Five for the TV’s)

Hamburger Melt on marbled rye bread

Technology /  by Dave Hileman

Our first day took us to Savannah, GA where we stayed the night in a restaurant parking lot, Coach’s Corner, on the East side of town. Good food but then you will read about that tomorrow. We did not realize we were just a short drive from Tybee Island and Fort Pulaski National Monument. We had visited here once before but during Covid - things were a bit more open this time. Off to Gamble Rogers, Florida, in the morning. The fort was built 30 years before the Civil War and was substantial. Its role was to protect Savannah but covering the river access. The confederates were well supplied and armed ready for a long seige/ The Union landed on Tybee and unlimbered the newest cannon with rifled barrels. In short order the brick fort was about to lose any protection for the gun powder as the shells destroyed the outer layer of brick. So the siege lasted less than 24 hours. National Park, Fort Pulaski, Georgia

MOOSE ALERT

TLT:

I would like to welcome Cadillac Moose back to Two Lane Touring. You may wonder where he has been as the last we saw of him was in Hawaii. Unfortunately, he fell in with a bad crowd. A tattooed bunch of wild Hulu Girls on their Vespa scooters captivated him and off he went. Until his downfall when…

C. Moose:

That’s enough information - no one needs to know the details. All they need to know is that I have finally found my purpose. And have extensive training courtesy of my brief stay out of the limelight in Hawaii. By the way, my education there was free, so no student debt. I have graduated from the Medicine Bow, MT, Online Community College of Culinary Arts with a PhD in Food Assessment. My degree from the prestigious MBOCCCA was almost $50 so you know it is quality. My minor is in ice cream, coffee and swamp plants.

My goal is to become a judge on the Great British Baking Show. How perfect am I for that gig? I realize I need to acquire some experience so I will be the new Two Lane Touring food critic. Until such time, maybe 4 or five months, as my innate talent surfaces and the GBBS calls me to replace Mr. Hollywood. How he ever got the job I don’t know.

We are heading back to Texas scene of the last disaster TLT had with PhotoMan at the helm so I hope he can actually get us to some restaurants in the wild west. Yet, once again, I am not too hopeful cause we are sitting by the Atlantic Ocean and that is not the West.

Stay tuned for my first exciting post, unless, of course, the GBBS calls me tonight.

Full moat at the fort

The parade ground. Gun ports on all walls and cannon mounted on the top as well

Damage from the 1862 bombardment - newer brick to the left where the wall was about to collapse.

On The Road Again... /  by Dave Hileman

We are off. If we are on schedule we should be at Gamble Rogers along the Atlantic Ocean in Florida sometime today. Posting for the trip will begin tomorrow, Wednesday. All the posts this trip may not be linear but I will try to have a post every day. In fact somedays will have more than one. Restaurants and ice cream stops will be separate posts along with camping posts but on the main blog. So, some days one post, some days two or four. All of course, brilliant:)

We will have photos from lots of places on our 120 day journey. Those photo will include many from the 34 new NPS units we hope to visit and the 11 or so we will revisit. A new feature will be an ID on each photo for easier searching of the National Park sites. I will also do a summary of our time at each park.

We will be joined by the indecipherable Cadillac for many of the posts. But I will let him tell you his story - with a few corrections to make it more accurate.

When You Rule! /  by Dave Hileman

This is the King Louis XVI of the bird kingdom. The Hooded Merganser: showy, proud, gilded, and a style setter for the rest of the flock. You should see his palace.

Consultation with one of his ministers.

Kingfisher at Speed /  by Dave Hileman

This is a medium size fast bird that flys erratically and I have failed many times to photograph one. They are often difficult even when you find one sitting cause they abruptly dive from their perch and flit here and there. I have a few sitting shots but never one in flight. I was shooting birds in a pond when I saw from the corner of my eye a bird racing low across the sky, I just turned and shot three shots, didn’t even know what bird it was at first. When I got to view them all three were in focus. The AF system with the bird detect - which I had engaged as I was shooting ducks on the small pond, worked wonderfully. I am very pleased with the performance of the Fuji X-T5 so far. And they are promising a firmware update to improve the Auto Focus system. I have including a couple more birds that took off from the pond when I got too close for their comfort. Didn’t mean to but they were down in the reeds where I could not see them. Again the system worked well.

Ibis

Even this egret that did not have an eye visible (focus looks for the eye) did well with the feet and the bill sharp.

Applause, Please /  by Dave Hileman

I am thrilled to have taken this shot of a Clapper Rail. (Right, applause) I have seen this species only one time about 30 years ago. I would have been excited to see one again as they are usually deep in the reeds in swamps and tidal pools. A very secretive, quiet bird. This one was startled and swam across a small pond. As soon as it reached the other shore, maybe 25 feet across, it disappeared into the reeds. Thrilled to get the shot.

Impact /  by Dave Hileman

This photo is part of your reading assignment. “The Man Who Moved a Mountain” is about Bob Childress and his impact on the people of Buffalo Mountain, seen here at sunset from the Blue Ridge Parkway in south-central Virginia. The area of Buffalo was notorious in an era and a place where people were tough, life was always hard, often brutal and short and there was very little contact with the outside world. Until a gang of brothers rode their horses into the Hillsville Courthouse, killed several people and fled with their kin. The FBI and newspaper reporters descended on the community to report back to the “civilized” world. Bob was struck by what he did not know and made the decision to change his life and it was momentous, leading eventually to Bob becoming a minister and going back home where he helped turn the violent and backward culture around. It is a wonderful, compelling and inspirational story. I have traveled the area to see most of the churches he built, the house he lived in the store he had to help people out. Do yourself a favor, read the book.

Afterthought /  by Dave Hileman

I took these quick shots of tools my grandson uses just on a whim when I saw them on a work space he uses. It sparked a long-dormant idea that i would like to take images of old tools in some yet to be determined creative fashion. I have always been enamored of the old tools you might find in a barn or a shed that have been used for years or decades. Old tool boxes that are battered and worn but tools inside still ready to use. The worn handles and lost luster speak of projects accomplished. iI that photo project ever happens, you read about it here first and if you wish you can get your name on the waiting list for fabulous prints:)

No Planning Needed.....Really! /  by Dave Hileman

We were told once, in what was clearly another era of travel that having an RV meant you could just decide in the morning which way the wind or your whim might take you. Well today that might find you parked along side a road hoping no one bothers you. Reservations for Florida State Parks are 11 months in advance and it is not easy to get into most of them over much of the year. When we made reservations for Yosemite a few years ago 425 campsites were gone in 11 seconds. SECONDS. So you can just bop a long, and we do sometimes, but not without some sense that it is an okay thing to do at that location at that time of year. If you want a busy campground, national park, state park or near any ocean, plan ahead.

Here is our travel plan done on software called RV Trip Wizard. There are six pages here covering 117 days with 54 stops and 7700 miles between those stops not counting travel at locations. Are you still flexible? Somewhat. We have a small number of unplanned days, we have several Harvest Hosts and they can be changed easily and with no fee, most parks you can also cancel within time frames. So, yes, we do have some options and likely will not hit all of these as planned. But Big Bend, Zion, Arches and many more we will keep or lose the opportunity. Trying to visit and photograph the 400+ National Park Units means planning or an unlimited budget. Hmmmm..

Boy + Cookie = Happy /  by Dave Hileman

This young man, Lev, was the ring-bearer at the wedding we attended last June. Smart, funny kid just a joy to be around. And he liked his cookie.

Another goal, might be too strong a word but I would like to learn a bit about taking portraits. I heard of the 100 stranger challenge - where you ask 100 people you do not know if you can take their photo. Intimidated by that idea but….